You’re on vacation or just traveling through, and you stop for church somewhere. As a minister of the gospel, you are so looking forward to being ministered unto.

You are beyond disappointed.

Question: Do you say something to the minister or not?

No. Almost always, the answer is “Absolutely not! There may be a hundred reasons why the preacher did not deliver today or the sermon bombed, and you don’t know any of them. Leave him to the Lord.”

When it comes to one preacher rebuking another for something, I fall back on Paul’s statement, “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls….” (Romans 14:4).

However, that doesn’t stop us from wanting to.

I had spent several days ministering in an East Tennessee setting, and on Sunday morning asked my hosts to go to church with me.  Since we were old friends and they were new in that area and had not found a church home yet, I figured we’d be safe worshiping at the First Baptist Church there.

You would think.

It was a nice-sized church, with maybe 250 or 300 in attendance.  Attractive location and good facilities. They had an interim pastor, someone from a Christian college or some para-Christian ministry, I forget which.  The sermon he brought that day was on friendship.

Now, I’m not against a sermon on the subject of friendship. In fact, Scripture has a good deal to say about friends, particularly in Proverbs. That God’s Word has anything on the subject of friendship would probably be a surprise to that preacher, however, since he made no reference to anything scriptural.  In fact, the sermon would have fit perfectly at some civic club meeting.  As a Christian message, it was woefully lacking.

The first mention of the name Jesus came in the invitation at the close of the sermon.

Now, I’m sympathetic to preachers and can find something good in even the poorest sermons, so it takes a lot to offend me.

But this really ticked me off.

Toward the end of the sermon, a quiet battle was being fought inside my heart over whether to speak to the minister and register my complete disgust with such omissions in his sermon.  My flesh wanted me to do it, but my spirit was protesting. Or, vice versa. Not sure which.

Oh, I would not have used such crass terms as “disgusted.”  I would have found a more tactful way to let him know what a total bum he was.

Please smile. I’m being facetious.

Eventually, I made a little bargain with the Lord. “If he goes to the door to greet worshipers, then we’ll have to see him and chat with him. So, I’ll ask for a moment aside with him and say something. But, I am not going to walk to the front of the auditorium and do this.”

Since no effort was made in the service to get the names and addresses of the visitors, and since none of those who shook our hands inquired if we were local residents or looking for a church home, you will not be surprised to learn the minister did not stand at the door and greet the people as they departed.

No one seemed to care.

I found myself apologizing to my friends over lunch for the lousy message and the uncaring church members.

What I wish, however….

–I wish the lay leadership of that church had higher standards for what was preached from their pulpit.  I think we can safely assume that this was a typical message from this guy, which means he thinks little of Scripture and finds little there worth sharing.  Honestly, if I were a member of that congregation, I would have been in his office on Monday morning.

During interims, the committee charged with filling the pulpit has the responsibility to see that only godly preachers are invited who will preach the Word and not their opinions, and that anyone recommended as an interim (meaning he will be preaching until a new pastor arrives) preaches the Word.

–I wish people in that church were more conscious of visitors. They are located in a thriving growth area where people are moving in and tourists pack the motels and crowd the streets and restaurants. God has given them a great opportunity.  On the surface, it appears that no one cares, but I doubt if that’s the case.

Church members need leaders to train them in how to greet guests and to seek out those with special needs or questions.  It all comes down to leadership.  Therefore, we would probably be safe assuming the previous pastor(s) of this church were not strong in these matters either.

–I wish someone in that church cared enough for what is said from the pulpit to confront the interim pastor. My wife read the above and said, “You’d ruin that man’s week.”  Maybe so. But it would be an act of love. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy” (Proverbs 27:6).

–I wish I had asked around about churches and taken my friends somewhere else that day. They’ve still not joined a church there.